The silhouette of Cesar Augusto Sandino, his hands clasped behind his back, his left foot pointing outwards, wearing high-laced army boots and a ten-gallon hat, is the universal emblem of Nicaragua's revolutionary movement. In the 1920s Sandino led a prolonged guerrilla campaign against the US marines who had been occupying his country since 1912. The Marines withdrew, but left in their place a surrogate, the National Guard, whose commander, Somoza, had Sandino murdered after he had laid down his arms in 1934. Somoza seized power and kept it until he was shot in 1956. He was succeeded by his son, who was overthrown in the revolution of 1979 and killed later in Paraguay. The National Guard - the personal instrument of the Somoza dynasty and the chosen arm of the United States - behaved like an army of occupation right to the end. The end came on 19 July 1979 when the Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional took over the government of Nicaragua.

LRB 1 September 1983 | PDF Download